Mumbai: During an event to establish a textile park across Lucknow and Hardoi districts under the PM Mega Integrated Textile Sector and Apparel, Uttar Pradesh (UP) Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath praised his government for paving the way for UP's development through the construction of airports, highways and the maintenance of proper law and order. He criticised previous governments for tarnishing UP's reputation by allowing a poor law and order situation to prevail. He claimed that from 2012 to 2017, there were more than 700 riots in UP, and over 364 riots from 2007 to 2012 and since 2017 until now, not a single riot has occurred in UP.

FactChecker analysed official data from the Crime in India reports published by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) between 2007 and 2021, the latest available, to verify the chief minister’s claim and found it to be incorrect. According to the data, more instances of riots were recorded during the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rule in UP than under previous governments.

NCRB categorises instances of rioting into 15 types, including communal, sectarian, caste-based conflicts, agrarian, industrial and political, among others. Since 2014, the NCRB has been publishing details under crime heads ‘riots’ and ‘unlawful assembly’ separately, while in previous editions, the data under these two heads were published under one head.

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) formed the government in 2007, with Mayawati assuming office as the CM in May 2007. She served until March 2012. During the BSP's tenure in UP, the NCRB recorded 22,347 cases of riots. While the incidents of riots decreased until 2010, there was an increase of 19.7% in 2011.

Cases of Riots between 2007-2011

Year

Incidents of Riots

2007

4,495

2008

4,381

2009

4,263

2010

4,186

2011

5,022

Source: National Crime Records Bureau reports for 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011

In March 2012, Akhilesh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party (SP) became the CM of UP and served until March 2017. In his first year in office, riot cases increased by 13%. Throughout Yadav's tenure, the number of riot cases showed an upward trend, with 33,034 cases and an increase of 60% over his five-year term.

Cases of Riots between 2012-2016

Year

Incidents of Riots

2012

5,676

2013

6,089

2014

6,438

2015

6,813

2016

8,018

Source: National Crime Records Bureau reports for 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016

FactChecker had reported in September 2022, that UP had recorded 35,040 cases of riots in five years of the Yogi Adityanath government from 2017 to 2021.

Cases of Riots between 2017-2021

Year

Incidents of Riots

2017

8,990

2018

8,908

2019

5,714

2020

6,126

2021

5,302

Source: National Crime Records Bureau reports for 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021

In 2017, UP recorded a decade-high of 8,990 riot cases. Since then, the number of riot cases decreased by 41%. Family conflicts accounted for 11.1% of the cases in these five years, while land and property disputes accounted for 8.7% of the cases. In Uttar Pradesh, all types of riots decreased during the current BJP government, except for rioting related to enmity or rivalry, which increased by 55.3%. But the lowest number (5,302) of riot cases recorded under the BJP in 2021 was still higher than the highest recorded (5,022) in a year under the BSP government.

FactChecker reached out to Yogi Adityanath’s office via email and phone for comment and clarification on the claim but did not receive a response by the time of publishing. We also tried calling Sanjay Prasad, principal secretary to the CM, but the call did not get through. When we receive a response, we will update it here.
Yogi AdityanathUttar PradeshRiotsNCRBBJP

Merin Mathew